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Wednesday, August 20, 2014

Baila! Starring David Longoria will be airing on PBS Tv Stations across America this fall. The 90 minute music concert style program characteristics a stage full of musicians, singers and dancers and guest stars from about the globe.

The unique functions Longoria together with guest stars from around the globe: Latin singer and actress Jimena, from Mexico City; Lebanese singer Therese Neaime, from Dubai; and, American artists April Diamond, Juliet B. Rock, Latisha, and rapper five Star. The unique was taped live from OC Pavilion in Santa Ana, California to be broadcast on PBS stations nationally.

"I was honored all of the guests flew in to be a portion of my Television unique. We had a blast and the live audience was terrific," Longoria recalls.

The concert characteristics a stage filled with musicians, singers and dancers. "I am proud to contain our world class dancers in our show", Longoria says. "We have Salsa dancers, Tango, ballet, belly dancers and even go-go. This is quite possibly an initial to air on PBS stations. Baila is Spanish for 'dance' so we wanted to present several forms of dance with my music." They added video screens to give a complete visual

Baila! also will be the title of Longoria's new cd, which he calls a collection of ?Latin feeling jazzy songs with catchy lyrics and melodies.? The 15 songs collection attributes guest performances of Cece Peniston, Ottmar Liebert, Marc Antoine, Poncho Sanchez, Jimena, Therese Neaime, Latisha, five Star and others. "My music can be a blend of Jazz, pop, Latin and dance, " says Longoria. "People who enjoy Latin Jazz appear to follow our music too as people who enjoy to dance."

Longoria began out in classical music prior to he found jazz. "Listening to the jazz greats like Dizzy Gillespie, Freddy Hubbard, Miles Davis and other people inspired me to improvise also as innovate, says Longoria, adding, "the ones who communicated to every person simply and had a lot off wide appeal made sense to me, from Al Hirt to Herb Alpert." These days Longoria loves the performers who reach out to relate to the popular man. "Andrea Bocelli. Shakira, Carlos Santana, these are folks that take their art to exactly where the persons can get it and appreciate it," explains Longoria. "It's wonderful that we have awesome abilities to develop sophisticated music, or to be technically proficient on our instrument, but music is all about communication to me. If I lose my audience because I wish to just show off on my trumpet, the message is lost. My fans want to hear me genuinely get passionate and PLAY the trumpet and I do not desire to let them down. But the music should always be musical so it can be understood and enjoyed."

Audiences seem to delight in Longoria's unique music. A lot more than 100,000 follow his social media fan web sites and they watch his videos on YouTube. "I really like YouTube for bringing the music and video clips correct to the fans. Anytime day or night you could go watch your preferred artists perform. And it is cost-free! I am blessed to have so quite a few fans that watch my videos and follow me to concerts and our Tv performances. My YouTube channel (www.youtube.com/davidlongoria) has properly more than 2 million views so far. And we're growing every day!" Fans can find his FaceBook fans page at and Twitter at www.twitter.com/davidlongoria7.

Longoria decided to create and appear on his own Television Special for PBS stations when he found opera singer Andrea Bocelli carry out on his own Tv unique on the PBS network. "I love how PBS can bring fantastic performers to the American audiences even if their music does not fit a specific radio format. I've only heard Andrea Bocelli on the radio at Christmastime but his music is wonderful and I think PBS for exposing the American audiences to his artistry," says Longoria. Other people like Michael Buble bring such a terrific sound and also the PBS specials have given them the required strength of exposure to the fans. "I am so pleased to bring my music and guests to our own PBS unique this year", Longoria says proudly. "This is an audience that desires fantastic top quality performances form the most effective world class performers so the regular is high and we give them almost everything we've got to rise to that", he adds.

Monday, July 21, 2014

Various kinds of games have been launched for the past
couple of years and as many fail to impress, many others rise up to the
expectations of players from all over the globe. As gaming has become an exclusive
spare time hobby of a massive amount of people worldwide, it is only fitting to
find the best games these days to play. Realm of the Mad God is a highly unique
multi-player game that has managed to capture the hearts of millions of gamers
in different parts of the world. With its impressive characters and plot, the
game is not only addictive but it is also immensely fun to play in the long
run. With a lot of challenges arising while playing the game, using hacks
surely makes sense since it gives gamers the opportunity the need in order to
score a lot.

The HP Hack

There are a wide number of hacks which players can use in
Realm of the Mad God and some of them are so special that it surely is going to
change the overall journey of many players in a short period of time. The first
most important hack is the HP hack, or also known as the Health Points hack.
This allows the players of the game to achieve unlimited health points
throughout the process of playing, which means that they can easily go on and become
top scorers in the game, without having to struggle in the matter. The health
point’s hack is considered to be an exceptionally important one, as stated in Realm of the Mad God Hack review. Therefore,acquiring it is undoubtedly a wise
decision for the future.

The MP Hack

On the other hand, the MP hack is also considered to be
immensely useful and many players of the game can be seen to be searching for
it at all times. The MP hack, which actually stands for Mana Power, actually
allows players to perform as much magic as they require throughout the game.
This kind of hack is very important in order to destroy the opponents swiftly
in Realm of the Mad God. Not only does the Mana Power hack gives players the
power to do unlimited magic in the multi-player game, but it also gives them
the ability to save themselves from many troublesome
situations.

The Gold Hack

Another unique and highly important hack for the game is the
Gold hack. This basically brings a massive amount of Gold to the players of the
game, which in turn enables them to survive over a large scale in the long run.
The more the gold, the better it is; therefore, acquiring the Gold hack is what
makes a player rich and sufficient enough to move forward. With all these
hacks, a player of the game is undoubtedly unbeatable in all ways possible. Realm of the Mad God Hackhas
revealed that these exclusive hacks of the game are now available online to
download for free, which is why the wonderful opportunity must be availed as
soon as possible.

Monday, June 30, 2014

We've been having some dry weather since Christmas, and that's unusual.
This is the time of year somebody in the sky turns on the sprinkler
system and forgets to turn it off.

Rain mixed with snow is forecast for most of the week. This morning I
thought about what happens when we have this kind of forecast.
Immediately Bob says "I've got to get gas for the car." Why? Knowing
him, the tank is at least half full. Besides that, where are we going?
These are the kind of days people like us need to stay inside.

While he was out getting gas he was going to go by the grocery store and
pick up some things we might need, and lay in a supply of chili from
Wendy's.

At 7:30 a.m. it was still dark outside. Now it is very gray and overcast. This adds to the angst.

I don't expect to get much snow but I do expect it to rain most of this
week, the rest of the month, as well as February, March, April, May, and
part of June.

It's this kind of weather that makes me long to feed the birds. I can't
imagine a bird starving here but I want to feed them for my enjoyment
on winter days. I've never been able to come up with a solution. There
just isn't a good place to put up a feeder here, but yesterday I came
up with something I hope will work.

I never tire of the moss that grows here. You can see the edge of the
patio that was a lot greener before I swept it. Off the patio is some
pretty little moss. Makes me smile.

I put out a flag to let the birds know I was open for business.

Then I went to the store and bought these hangers and the small
feeders. Note the feeders do not have a lot of seed in them. There's a
reason for that. It's almost impossible to keep seed dry here during
the winter. My chair is just inside the door so I figure I can put out
small amounts and add more as needed. It's easy for wet seed to mold
and clog the holes.

No, I'm not crazy. That is a hummingbird feeder. There's one breed
that lives here in the Willamette Valley the year around. Occasionally
we've put out a feeder and I do remember going out every few minutes to
wipe the snow off so the hummingbirds could get to it.

(Bob just called me to the window and we have a hummingbird at the feeder. That didn't take long.)

I am under no illusion this arrangement will keep the seed dry. My best
hope is that it will help since they're hanging under a covered patio.

And I put out a source of water.

So far the hummingbird is the only customer we've had but the feeders went up late yesterday afternoon.
_______________

Now about that nice plump gray squirrel that crosses my patio multiple
times a day. When I went to the store I contemplated getting a squirrel
feeder and putting an ear of corn on it but my experience has been that
they will rip the corn cob off and take the whole thing, feeder and all
if necessary.

I did buy a small bag of squirrel food and will put a handful out
everyday. I'll explain to him the system of sharing, he gets his and
the birds get theirs. I'm sure he won't want to make me unhappy.

Wednesday, June 25, 2014

It's no surprise that I love me some character redesigns...and it just seems that video game characters get redesigned often. (But maybe that's just because that's what interests me.) If I looked for it, how many takes of Wolverine or Batman would I find? More than a few, I'm sure.

So, randomly, I was on this Krang obsession (he's even my desktop pic right now). You know, the-talking-brain-tucked-away-in-an-android's-gut Krang? The guy who was always sassing Shredder. I was finding all these legit imaginings people had come up with, and quite awesomely, I stumbled across and entire macro-blog dedicated to some wicked turtle redesign. The owner/artist of this sweet treasure, Dan, went ahead and took 17 characters from the TMNT mythos, designed them how he saw fit, and basically made me miss my childhood.

Thanks, Dan.

Clearly, Dan went one louder, and--I absolutely love when creators do this--wrote a small paragraph about his take/angle of the character.

Donatello - does machine. My favorite of the turtles. The turtles designs from the cartoon and comic book always seemed a bit too cartoonish to me, and they didn't really look much like turtles. They looked more like green tinted cabbage patch kids with shells. I wanted my designs of the turtles to actually look like turtles, and incorporate the traits of a number of different species of testudines. I also wanted the designs to be more chunky. I don't like some more recent designs where they look really skinny and lithe. I based Donatello on a tortoise. I also wanted his gear to look a bit more modern and technological.

Let's have another one.

Leonardo - leads. I based Leo on a sea turtle. I thought that the sleek shell seemed appropriate, as well as the way that it's shaped like a shield. I wanted his gear to be more traditional looking so based his belt on the way that samurais used to wear their scabbards. I also wanted his swords to look a bit more antique, like Splinter passed them down to him.

See what I mean? And that's just the tip of it all--there's still 15 more character studies this guy has! Unreal in a sassy sort of way.

Now this got me thinking of another artist who had his own take on the original Mortal Kombat characters. I had stumbled across it in '10, and decided to google "Scorpion redesign."

Well, I found this cool bastard, didn't I?

Scorpion as a wraith wearing the yellow blood of the demon that helped him resurrected to exact his revenge against his mortal enemy.

The guy in question is Vincent Proce, who is not only a skilled artist, but loves him some MK (who doesn't though, amiright?). Dude's come up with a (re)design for Kano (below), Raiden, Scorpion (above), Sub-Zero, and Sonya. He wants to fill out the roster with Liu Kang, Shang Tsung, Johnny Cage, and Goro--all the original cast from Mortal Kombat.

And like Dan the Man, Vincent hooks us up with character bios..

Kano, half Japanese half US military bad ass.

I appreciate this type of stuff to no end. This is the very marrow of Nerd Incarnate, and I love every single bit of it. There's so much energy, so much unabashed admiration for these characters... It's one thing to draw a piece and post it, but you're in a whole different class--a different mind frame--when you throw a bit of story up with it.

Let's tie this back to comics: It's one of the absolute best parts of making comics when you hand a character bible to your artist, and after waiting any given time, opening up your inbox and being genuinely surprised when they've come back with something that echoes what you were striving for in words, but could not have be complete or possible without their art.

Comic book writing is something, for me, that can be broken down into functioning, separate pieces. Cobbled together, they become something slightly fluid. You break a page out by panels--those panels are your bricks, and the alluded time in-between those panels are your mortar--and convey time and movement through both character actions, balloons, setting, and whatnot. I feel comfortable writing this way, because it's a--and I'm aping someone's analogy here, I just can't remember who--strobe-light effect. You get pulses of the story, and the audience subconsciously fills in the time between these pulses, thus making the comic writer's job that much easier--your audience is helping you with the story.

Also--and this is huge--you have an artist that makes you look like you know what you're doing. Which is key to comics. So you take something like this:

PAGE SIX – 5 panels

Panel 1: And it sticks in two Bug-a-Bots’ heads/through their eyes, sending them flying backwards with tremendous force. Several flying gears and guts are outlined in several separate dialogue balloons with wavy tails pointing to the damage (let’s call these “action balloons” from now on).

SOUNDFX: KA-CHOONK

Panel 2: The obelisk is right in front of her, and she jumps off the back of one of the Bug-a-Bots’ heads. Other Bug-a-Bots have their claws snapping after her.

SOUNDFX: SHOOF

SOUNDFX: snip snip snipp

Panel 3: She lands on the top of the floating obelisk.

(no dialogue)

Panel 4: She’s crouching on the top of the floating obelisk, facing us, but her attention is focused on pulling the Orb or Ares out.

MONS (as bubble): MY, MY.

MONS (as bubble): PERHAPS I SHOULD FOCUS ON BUILDING A STURDIER BUG-A-BOT…

MONS (as bubble): NEVERTHELESS, YOU NEED TO BE A TELEPATHIC MARTIAN TO REMOVE THE ORB FROM THE OBELISK, MY DEAR.

Panel 5: She stops what she’s doing to look at us. She’s in the middle of pulling her scarf down, and by the look on her face, she hates every fiber of our being.

KITSUNE: MONS.

And you get something like this:

(art courtesy of Erik Thompson)

Acid-pop. Weird science-y action that sticks with you. A book you want to read.

And, although there's no constant movement, you get the idea of what's happening.